The Choice
by onceuponaplot
Summary: Shaping lives and deciding futures, it is a heavy choice to weigh on such young minds. With so little guidance, the decisions can be difficult and frustrating. But somehow, they always seem to end up being the right ones. OC-centric oneshot.


For as long as I have been aware of what people think of me, I know it has always been one thing: Tyler Corran is loud. He is loud and outspoken and brutally honest.

In Candor, that makes me perfect. My father has always praised my honesty, lauded that I rarely think to rein in my criticisms so as not to be so harsh. If I am honest, I am keeping all deception from myself and others, and they will be grateful for it. It is what helps save this world.

It is the reason I feel a pang every time I let a lie slip past my lips that they do not know about, that they cannot possibly suspect. It is the reason I know I will not choose Candor tomorrow at the Choosing Ceremony.

I get out of my father's car as he stops it in front of the Hub for my last day of school. I take my aptitude test this afternoon. I am sure that he believes I will choose Candor tomorrow. I still have not told him how I feel I do not fit in, how I cannot bear to tell the truth all the time.

He wishes me a good day before he drives away, and I return the sentiment.

Entering the school, the train from which all of the Dauntless kids will jump is just arriving. I head to my first class. Math. My friends are there, waiting for me, and I sit with them and laugh until class begins.

The day flies by, and before I know it, I am sitting in the cafeteria, waiting to be called for my aptitude test. Since my name is early in the alphabet, I go before most of my friends, into one of the ten testing rooms.

A younger Abnegation man sits in the room, dressed in their customary grey and with short-cropped, light hair. He looks up at me and smiles. "Please sit."

I do, and he hands me a cup filled with some kind of liquid, asks me to please drink it while he attaches the wires to me. I ask why I should.

"It is the test," is his only response. He politely asks me to drink it again. If I am feeling comfortable. "It is alright to feel nervous. Many do."

"I'm not nervous." It is the truth. I think. Is it a lie? I don't know any more. My heart feels like it's going to explode from me. This is as good as my final choice. I will do what this test tells me. If I am to remain in Candor or be a transfer, I will find out now. I will not disagree with the test. I think.

I drink the liquid. The Abnegation man takes the cup from me and requests that I close my eyes, which I do. When I next open them, I am no longer in the chair.

I stand in a large, brightly lit room. I can see tall windows to my right, to my left is a door. In front of me is a table. I walk towards it.

There are two baskets on the table. One is piled with food. The other, knives of varying sizes. A long baton and some rope rests in between them. I reach out to pick up some of the food, I'm feeling a bit hungry, but I freeze when I hear a sound behind me. I peek over my shoulder.

A medium-sized dog stands by the door, growling in a menacing fashion. It is light tan and black, lean. It takes a small step towards me and I take a small step back, bumping into the table. The dog starts running.

Terror sweeping over me, I grab the baton, and hold it in front of me as the dog leaps. The dog grabs the baton in its teeth, gnawing and gnashing as it tries to get to me. With pure adrenaline, I wrestle with the creature, its mouth still occupied by the wooden baton, until I have it pinned on the floor.

The rope got knocked onto the floor at some point, and I use it to tie the creature's legs. It cannot stand, but it wriggles on the ground a few moments before falling still. Its brown eye stares at me, and watches as I pace back and forth. What should I do with it? What do I do now? Will someone who tells me what to do come soon?

The dog growls, wriggles again, and one of the knots comes undone. I back into the table again and grab the baton. I will fight it again if I have to. But then there is another sound, and when I look there is a toddler standing behind me. The dog sees it too.

The rest of the rope falls off as the right knot unravels. The dog lunges, and I know that whatever happens to me, I cannot let it reach the little girl. I don't care about me, but it cannot hurt her. I don't know why.

I do not realize that I have grabbed a knife and stabbed the dog to keep it from the child until it falls to the ground, dead. I stare at my hands, where red blood glistens. I look back to the toddler, but it is gone. In her place stands an older man with a scarred face. He staggers forward, runs to my side.

He falls beside the dog and buries his hands in its fur, petting it, crooning softly. He looks up at me. There is fury in his eyes. "Who did this?" he growls, and it reminds me of the dog. "Did you see who did this? I'll kill them!"

My eyes are wide, but my breathing is still steady. I am terrified. I am terrified to tell this man the truth. It is what I should do, what all good Candors would do. I should tell him the truth.

But in the back of my mind it is not the obligation to tell no lie, drilled into me since birth, that forces me to speak, but my certainty that lying would be the cowardly thing to do.

"It's my fault." The man snarls and he leaps at me.

I raise my hands to defend myself, but nothing happens. When I open my eyes, I am sitting in the metal chair in the plain room. My head is still whirling with all that I have seen - was it real? - and I am shaking slightly. I swallow thickly, take a deep breath, and turn to the Abnegation man. He is frowning. Clicking things on the computer. I just catch sight of the words 'ENTRY COMPLETE' flashing on the screen.

The Abnegation man turns back to face me. "So?" I ask while he removes the wires from us. "What is my aptitude?"

He eyes me for a few seconds, looks me up and down. He nods, as if to himself. "Dauntless, sir." The tone is polite, as Abnegation always is. But it is also wrong, it holds a sort of authority I have not heard from Abnegation before. His eyes - a light blue - pin me to my seat. I have never paid enough attention to one of the selfless before to notice their eyes, and I vaguely wonder how much about them we all miss.

The way he ignores me makes me bold. "You're lying. What am I really?"

The man looks back at me, all steel and control in his stare. "_Dauntless_, sir."

I don't say anything, but I continue to stare at him. I have been told that my eyes - a dark green flecked with golden brown - are very piercing, and that my stare is unsettling. Intimidating. The fact that I'm tall for my age and fairly muscular helps. I'm not bulky with muscle the way some Dauntless that I've seen are, but I'm not flimsy like some of the Erudite and Amity. Lean, I would say. Like a cat.

The Abnegation man shakes his head. "I tell the truth," he says quickly, in a low voice that is fiercer than I have ever heard one of the selfless use, "If you are only wise enough to appreciate it."

I am caught off guard by the comment and I sit back. It is something my father has said often enough that the words are forever burned in my memory. It is something so plainly Candor that I suspect the Abnegation man must have come from my current faction.

I begin to speak, "You-"

"You should go," the man says, ignoring me. I have never been ignored by someone from Abnegation before, and for it to happen for a second time in so few minutes stuns me to silence. I am led to the door and gently pushed out.

As I wander out of the school, the word 'Dauntless' rings in my ears. I have an aptitude for Dauntless. I can be free of the truth of Candor. The thought makes me feel just a bit better.

I get on one of the buses, sliding into a seat by a window. The bus is very full, and there are only two seats left once I sit: the one next to me, and one near the back of the bus. At the next stop, a woman and little kid in Abnegation garb climb aboard. The woman scans the rows with a serene face, and moves towards me. She bids the child to sit there and not move until she gets him, then moves towards the back of the bus to the other empty seat.

The kid sits quietly beside me, dark, short-cut hair covering his head. As I study him, he looks up at me with eyes that are a very dark blue. That's two Abnegation that have blue eyes now. Maybe many of them do? Or just these two? I honestly wouldn't know. He smiles at me, and I wonder how old he must be to have no reservations about doing so.

"Hi," I say awkwardly when nothing else comes to mind.

"Hi," the little boy replies. He is swinging his feet back and forth. Carefree and innocent, just like a kid should be. I smile at him, and he smiles back widely, showing his little teeth. "I'm Tobias."

"It's nice to meet you, Tobias. I'm Tyler."

Tobias nods and looks at me, scrunching his tiny brows together in thought. "You don't look like everyone else. Your hair is too long. My mommy cuts my hair before it gets too long. Doesn't your mommy cut your hair?"

I run a hand through my hair as he mentions it. It's really not that long at all, if slightly shaggy. I can see how it would seem long, though, compared to the Abnegation hairstyle. "No, she doesn't. But it isn't too long. I just wear it differently than you."

Little Tobias nods and his gaze wanders around the boring bus, at the emptiness ahead of us but for the stairs and the driver on the opposite side. He twists in his seat to look behind us, then sits back down. He looks past me, out the window. Then, suddenly, he looks up at me. He looks like he wants to say something, but holds himself back. He has remarkable impulse control for someone so young. It must be a faction thing.

"Yes?" I ask. Maybe asking will let him tell me.

It works. "My daddy says the choose is tomorrow. Are you gonna choose?"

"Yeah," I say. "Yeah, tomorrow I choose. I'm in Candor, now."

"I'm in Aben- Ab- Abner-"

"Abnegation?"

"Yes. Are you going to choose Ab- mine? It's really nice. Everyone helps each other."

I lean my head back against the seat and sigh. "I don't know, Tobias. I really don't know." My aptitude is Dauntless, and I've never really considered Abnegation before, but if I do not choose Candor... I do not know how my family will react. Will they be angry? Supportive?

We don't talk for the rest of my time on the bus. Tobias spends it looking over me out the window, watching everything fly by. By the time my stop arrives, I'm sure he has forgotten everything we talked about. But as I'm climbing down the steps, I hear a little voice call out, "It would be nice if you did! My mommy could even help with your hair! It's a nice color. It's...it's red-brown."

I look back, and Tobias has leaned over the railing that separates our seats from the stairs. As I look, the woman who must be his mother slips out of her seat in the back and heads towards the front. Her belly looks swollen, and I assume that she's expecting another child. Tobias will be a big brother within the year.

"Thank you. I'll keep that in mind, Tobias." He nods vigorously and sits back in the seat just as his mother sits beside him. She nods politely at me and I dip my head in return. I leave the bus.

It's another five minutes until I reach my house. Two stories, a forgettable green color. When my parents are home, there will be a car parked in the driveway. I go inside and up to my room, throwing myself onto my bed. With my face buried in a pillow, I think. I consider. I debate.

Candor is a good faction, a respectable one. We do not have any rivals among the other factions the way tensions have been slowly rising between Abnegation and Erudite. We simply tell the truth, and sometimes it grates on others, yes, but they appreciate it in some way, I'm certain. Candor would be a good faction to live in. But initiation... I would have to tell all my secrets to everyone. And I have several that cannot be told, too personal and hurtful to those I know for me to share. So I cannot choose Candor.

But can I choose something other than my family?

The Erudite faction is dismissed from my consideration right away, and not just because I have no aptitude for it. I already fidget and can't stand school as it is. Studying for the rest of my life would be like school a thousand times over again, and I don't wish for it. Amity joins it; they are just _too_ peaceful, if that is possible. I wouldn't fit in there.

Abnegation would be nothing for me, I'm sure. I could not conform like that. I could not resign myself to such a simple existence for the rest of my life. Choosing Abnegation would be like choosing to let my soul slowly wither and die. I think of little Tobias, and how he is happy there. But he has known nothing else. He has not known what it is like to be anything but quiet and kind and uniform.

The thought of the Dauntless sends a shiver up my spine, and I feel a bit guilty for it. I have seen the way they jump on and off moving trains and pull pranks, the sparkling _something_ in their eyes after they do some crazy stunt. I can't help but want desperately to know what that thrill feels like, how alive you must seem after. They are uniform as well, but in a different way than the Abnegation. Where the Abnegation are all the same in appearance and action and mindset, the Dauntless have a camaraderie that makes them all the same. But their actions, and their appearances and their attitude makes them unique.

I lie on my stomach for a long time contemplating the three possibilities. Remain in Candor, or join either Abnegation or Dauntless. I don't even know why I think of the gray-clad men and women of Abnegation. I suppose Tobias has made me consider it.

Every time I think I have come to a decision, another possibility rattles my choice and sends it away. I am no closer to making a choice when my parents arrive home than when I left school, and I am quiet at the dinner table. My parents probably think it's just nerves about tomorrow, about being in front of all those people and then the initiation that follows, because they don't ask any questions, just share this knowing look. They are sure that I will choose Candor.

That certainty of theirs is what makes me decide I will not stay with the truthful, honest Candor. And after my silence tonight, who knows? Maybe I can handle being the silent, selfless Abnegation initiate, aptitude or no.

When I fall asleep, it is to dreams of wearing a gray jacket and pants with close cropped hair and a serene face. But just before I wake, in that stage that is not completely sleep, the gray-robed young man suddenly switches into one that wears black and has piercings and tattoos and jumps off speeding trains.

I stand between an Erudite boy with brown eyes and blond, slicked back hair who is shorter than me by a head and an Amity girl with short black hair and blue eyes. The girl smiles at me, while the boy seems to be zoned out, thinking about something. I am the only Candor early in the alphabet, so I will be the last from my faction to choose. Almost the last among the group, even. There are seven people after me.

I half pay attention as one of the Dauntless leaders climbs onto the stage and makes a speech about the Choosing Ceremony. I find it oddly amusing that the year one of the Dauntless conducts the ceremony, there is also a record low number of Dauntless kids. Of kids in general. Our class is a small one. Only twelve from Dauntless will be participating this year, if my memory serves correct. With the possibility that they will choose other factions, the number of initiates will be low.

They begin at the end of the alphabet, and I pay a bit more attention than before. There are not many surprises. Many choose to stay with their current faction. Several switch. There is a bit of a shock when a girl from Amity with long brown hair in a braid chooses Dauntless. Another when an Erudite boy transfers to Abnegation. A few other Candors switch, as well as two Dauntless and several Amity.

All of the Abnegation remain in their own faction, the members of which smile back at their children and neighbors' children occasionally. The boy beside me - Maxwell Drake - is called. I am next. Maxwell chooses Erudite. It is my turn.

I take my time walking to the front of the room and climbing the steps of the stage. I am handed a knife, and I look out to where my parents are sitting. My older brother and sister sit on either side of them, and they smile at me. Beckon me to them with their eyes, which silently sing "Choose Candor! Choose Candor and come back so we can congratulate you!"

I cut my hand, let my palm fill slightly with blood, and I allow myself a final moment of contemplation. Then I sprinkle the warm liquid over the bowl of sizzling coals. I am now a Dauntless initiate. I meet my family's eyes briefly as I exit the stage and walk towards where I must stand behind the Dauntless. My mother looks sad, and disappointment fills my father's eyes. My brother and sister just looked shocked, so much so that they cannot even muster a reaction yet. I hope desperately that at least one of them will come to see me on visiting day.

I reach my place, and stand beside the Dauntless boy who had been in front of Maxwell. I have the feeling that I will never forget the name of the Erudite who did not leave his family and friends before me. Then, all too soon, it is over.

The Dauntless are the first to leave, and they do so loudly, running down the steps with a sense of excitement that I am finally a part of. I whoop along with some of the others, and the Dauntless boy that I stood beside grins at me and claps me on the back as I run. I grin back, and my worries about my family are over. Even if they do not visit, I will find a new family here, I am sure of it.

As we approach the train, it seems to become real. We stand there for a few minutes before the slight shake to the ground alerts me to the approaching train. It is then that I wish I had paid more attention to the Dauntless as they got on and off the train, that I wish I knew more than what I have only mindlessly noticed out of the corner of my eye before. I am just a bit scared.

The Dauntless boy beside me looks over at me, and he must notice how unsure I feel because he pats my shoulder again. "Just follow my lead and you'll do fine." His words reassure me, and I feel better. When the train eventually begins to roll past, I do just what the boy does, and pull myself on. I am about to leave the open door to sit against one of the walls when I notice the braided Amity girl clinging to the side of the train. I offer my hand to her, and I pull her the rest of the way in as she grabs it.

She also sits next to me against the wall. We don't talk, but we don't really need to. We're both excited to be here, to be something different than we were just an hour ago. Because we are now both Dauntless initiates, and for now that is enough. We will get to names and conversations and friendships later.

The shout that others are getting off comes all too soon, and yet years later. And indeed, people are jumping off ahead of us. I brace myself at the open door, and the Amity girl is still beside me. She looks over at me and smiles nervously. I return it and grab her hand. She nods. We will jump together, the honest and the peaceful, into our new lives as fearless.

I stumble several steps after the terrifying jump from the train several stories above the ground, and so does the Amity girl. She manages to keep her balance while I stumble some more and eventually trip. She giggles for the split second before our still-joined hands pull her down too, and then we both laugh. It dies when one of the Dauntless boys shouts.

"Tasha!" He is standing on the corner of the building, and for a split second my stomach lurches. Someone has fallen. But then he shouts again, and he is reaching for the train with one outstretched hand rather than leaning over the edge. I look where he reaches, and there is still a figure standing on the train. It must be Tasha, too scared to leap through the empty air. There were fourteen of us initiates at first - four transfers, ten from Dauntless. Our number is already cut down, and we have not even entered Dauntless headquarters. I wonder what will happen to Tasha, if she will get a second chance at jumping. But I doubt it.

It is one or two minutes before the woman from the ceremony calls for attention and introduces herself as one of the Dauntless leaders. Abigail is her name. She explains that the members' entrance to headquarters is several stories below us. I wonder where the stairs that lead to it are for the short time before she announces that us initiates will be allowed to jump first, pointing to a ledge. She wants us to jump off a _ledge_.

All of the initiates are quiet, even those from Dauntless. The boy who called out to Tasha doesn't even appear to be listening.

"Well?" prompts Abigail, crossing her arms and raising one brow. She eyes us. "Who will it be?"

The Amity girl and I step forward at the same time, and we exchange a surprised look. Neither of us was expecting it. "Um," I say, "If you really want to, you-"

"You can-" she starts at the same time, then snorts as we both stop talking over each other. "Let's go together."

Somehow, this seems like a better choice. At least if we go splat on the ground because it's a trick that the Dauntless kids know better than to fall for, at least we won't be the only ones. Abigail looks amused as we walk up the rest of the way and stand before the ledge, looking at her for approval. She smirks as she nods and steps back, allowing us to take the final step onto the ledge. I look down at the nothingness and swallow. If I don't jump now, I'll never be a Dauntless. I will be one of the factionless, because I will have failed my initiation. That possibility is more frightening than dying.

I can feel the Amity girl beside my trembling slightly, and I grab her hand again on instinct. "On three," I say. "One. Two. Three." We jump, and we twist in the air so that whatever it is, we will land on our backs. We had let go of each other's hands before we jumped, but rejoin them as we fall.

The air is pushed out of me with an accompanying 'oof' as I not only land on something, but the Amity girl slams down on me. Somehow, she managed to hit me right in the stomach, and I can't breath for a few seconds. She scrambles off me quickly, and whatever we're on bounces with her movement. I feel the thin strings that are woven beneath us.

There was a net to break our fall. Two hands reach out from the side of the net and we each crawl over and grab one. We are pulled onto a kind of platform by two Dauntless members who look to be in their mid-twenties. They look surprised.

"First time we've ever gotten two on one jump," remarks the stockier of the two men, who has a tattoo that curls around the corner of his eyebrow. He shrugs. "Well, I'm Jimmy. And you two are?"

"I'm, uh," I start. Do I still want to be Tyler, the boy who was the honest liar? I don't, not really, and it takes me all of a second to think of who I will now be, who I will work to become. "I'm Joseph. You can call me Seph, though." It's more of a change than I originally planned, but it feels right to me.

"Dani," the Amity girl says, with so little hesitation that I know it is her name from before, or at least a nickname that she has used in the past. Jimmy grins at us, and I notice that he has several piercings on his lip.

"First jumpers this year're Seph and Dani!" he shouts; following his exclamation a crowd of people emerge from places I didn't even see. They cheer for us, loud and in a way that makes me feel strangely happy. The next person falls into the net with a loud laugh that the rest of my new faction renew their cheers for. It is one of the Dauntless kids. I smile at Dani and she smiles back.

Our new lives are there, waiting, and all we have to do now is grab them and hold on.

We are ready for this.

* * *

><p>Reviews andor constructive criticism would be much appreciated :)


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